A single spin that is misaligned with respect to the static external magnetic field is investigated as a toy model to clarify the nature of irreversibility in terms of inner friction and irreversible work. The coherence generation and the effects of unwanted transitions are analyzed in detail. The behavior of inner friction and irreversible work as a function of protocol time are analyzed for a finite-time unitary transformation. The coherence generation is shown to be the common sign for the inner friction and irreversible work. The excess energy sourced by the unwanted transitions for a quasistatic transformation is found to be the only sign for irreversible work. The angle The angle dependencies of the inner friction and irreversible work are also analyzed explicitly. The selected model and the considered realistic parameters are available to be implemented for the finite-time operations on the nuclear magnetic resonance setups.
A single spin that is misaligned with respect to the static external magnetic field is investigated as a toy model to clarify the nature of irreversibility in terms of inner friction and irreversible work. The coherence generation and the effects of unwanted transitions are analyzed in detail. The behavior of inner friction and irreversible work as a function of protocol time are analyzed for a finite-time unitary transformation. The coherence generation is shown to be the common sign for the inner friction and irreversible work. The excess energy sourced by the unwanted transitions for a quasistatic transformation is found to be the only sign for irreversible work. The angle The angle dependencies of the inner friction and irreversible work are also analyzed explicitly. The selected model and the considered realistic parameters are available to be implemented for the finite-time operations on the nuclear magnetic resonance setups.
Abstract The concept of internal friction, a fully quantum mechanical phenomena, is investigated in a simple, experimentally accessible quantum system in which a spin-1/2 is driven by a transverse magnetic field in a quantum adiabatic process. The irreversible production of the waste energy due to the quantum friction is quantitatively analyzed in a forward-backward unitary transform of the system Hamiltonian by using the quantum relative entropy between the actual density matrix obtained in a parametric transformation and the one in a reversible adiabatic process. Analyzing the role of total transformation time and the different pulse control schemes on the internal friction reveal the non-monotone character of the internal friction as a function of the total protocol time and the possibility for almost frictionless solutions in finite-time transformations.
The concept of inner friction, by which a quantum heat engine is unable to follow adiabatically its strokes and thus dissipates useful energy, is illustrated in an exact physical model where the working substance consists of an ensemble of misaligned spins interacting with a magnetic field and performing the Otto cycle. The effect of this static disorder under a finite-time cycle gives a new perspective of the concept of inner friction under realistic settings. We investigate the efficiency and power of this engine and relate its performance to the amount of friction from misalignment and to the temperature difference between heat baths. Finally we propose an alternative experimental implementation of the cycle where the spin is encoded in the degree of polarization of photons.
In this poster we addressed a finite time working quantum Otto cycle. The working substance of this cycle is characterized by non interacting disordered qubits. If we think at qubits as spins in a magnetic field, "disorder" refers to a random misalignment between the single spins and the direction of the external field. Such field drives, in a finite time, the adiabatic branches. On the other hand the isochoric transformations are assumed to be two thermalizations at different temperature T_c and T_h. Power, net work, efficiency and efficiency at maximum power are obtained, according to different choices of T_c/T_h and of the misalignment probability distribution across the substance. Such probability distributions are assumed to be Gaussian with mean values, for the misalignment, equal to zero.
Explanation of decoherence and quasi-equilibrium in systems with few degrees of freedom demands a deep theoretical analysis that considers the observed system as an open quantum system. In this work, we study the problem of decoherence of an observed system of quantum interacting particles, coupled to a quantum lattice. Our strategy is based on treating the environment and the system-environment Hamiltonians fully quantum mechanically, which yields a representation of the time evolution operator useful for disentangling the different time scales underlying in the observed system dynamics. To describe the possible different stages of the dynamics of the observed system, we introduce quantum mechanical definitions of essentially isolated, essentially adiabatic, and thermal-contact system-environment interactions. This general approach is then applied to the study of decoherence and quasi-equilibrium in proton nuclear magnetic resonance ((1)H NMR) of nematic liquid crystals. A summary of the original results of this work is as follows. We calculate the decoherence function and apply it to describe the evolution of a coherent spin state, induced by the coupling with the molecular environment, in absence of spin-lattice relaxation. By assuming quantum energy conserving or non-demolition interactions, we identify an intermediate time scale, between those controlled by self-interactions and thermalization, where coherence decays irreversibly. This treatment is also adequate for explaining the buildup of quasi-equilibrium of the proton spin system, via the process we called eigen-selectivity. By analyzing a hypothetical time reversal experiment, we identify two sources of coherence loss which are of a very different nature and give rise to distinct time scales of the spin dynamics: (a) reversible or adiabatic quantum decoherence and (b) irreversible or essentially adiabatic quantum decoherence. Local irreversibility arises as a consequence of the uncertainty introduced by the coupling with an infinite quantum environment. The reversible part can be represented by a semiclassical model, similar to standard line-shape adiabatic models. By exploiting the separation existing between the time scales of the spin coherences and the irreversible decoherence, we present a novel technique to obtain the orientational molecular distribution function for a nematic liquid crystal. The procedure is based on the comparison of the observed coherence time evolution and numerical calculation under the adiabatic quantum decoherence approach. As an example, it is used the experimental free induction decay from a nematic PAA(d6) sample to extract such an orientational distribution. This is the first theoretical description of the experimental liquid crystal NMR signal in the time domain. On the contrary, the irreversible decoherence is intrinsically full-quantum mechanical, as it is governed by the commutation properties of the environment and the spin-lattice Hamiltonians. Consistently, it depends on the molecular correlation in a decisive way, since it vanishes under a mean-field model for the molecular dynamics. The results of this work can contribute to the understanding of the open question of the applicability of the spin-temperature concept in spin systems with few degrees of freedom.
We discuss the thermodynamics of closed quantum systems driven out of equilibrium by a change in a control parameter and undergoing a unitary process. We compare the work actually done on the system with the one that would be performed along ideal adiabatic and isothermal transformations. The comparison with the latter leads to the introduction of irreversible work, while that with the former leads to the introduction of inner friction. We show that these two quantities can be treated on an equal footing, as both can be linked with the heat exchanged in thermalization processes and both can be expressed as relative entropies. Furthermore, we show that a specific fluctuation relation for the entropy production associated with the inner friction exists, which allows the inner friction to be written in terms of its cumulants.
Incorporating time into thermodynamics allows for addressing the tradeoff between efficiency and power. A qubit engine serves as a toy model in order to study this tradeoff from first principles, based on the quantum theory of open systems. We study the quantum origin of irreversibility, originating from heat transport, quantum friction, and thermalization in the presence of external driving. We construct various finite-time engine cycles that are based on the Otto and Carnot templates. Our analysis highlights the role of coherence and the quantum origin of entropy production.